The present invention relates to a power conversion apparatus, and more particularly relates to a power conversion apparatus that can be preferably applied to a vehicle such as a hybrid car.
In recent years, in vehicles such as a four-wheeled vehicle, hybrid cars that use an engine being an internal combustion engine and an electric motor in cooperation for a drive system have been widely used.
In such hybrid cars, as one of an electronic control apparatus that operates an engine and an electric motor in a cooperated state, a power control apparatus that has a power conversion apparatus incorporated therein has been used. The power conversion apparatus is for inputting and outputting relatively large electric power. Therefore, a plurality of plate-like bus-bars made of a metal material are routed as electric wiring.
These bus-bars are routed in a case in which a plurality of semiconductor elements and the like that perform a switching operation at the time of power conversion are housed. Therefore, the bus-bars need to be routed in the case so as not to unnecessarily increase the size of the power conversion apparatus.
Under such circumstances, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2007-236044 relates to a power semiconductor device and an inverter bridge module, and discloses a configuration in which at least a pair of power semiconductor devices is arranged so as to have a P bus-bar 1 and an N bus-bar 2 therebetween. The power semiconductor device includes a first collector terminal 5 pulled out from a first side surface of a casing, a first emitter terminal 6 pulled out from the first side surface of the casing, and a second collector terminal 7 or a second emitter terminal 8 pulled out from a second side surface opposite to the first side surface of the casing and electrically connected to the first collector terminal 5 or the first emitter terminal 6 inside the casing. The P bus-bar 1 and the N bus-bar 2 are juxtaposed in parallel and close to each other by extracting an output terminal from the second collector terminal 7 or the second emitter terminal 8.